Varda Space Industries has successfully demonstrated the viability of manufacturing pharmaceuticals in orbit, a critical step toward its goal of making "in-space industry" a routine and even "boring" affair. CEO Will Bruey envisions a future where specialized spacecraft regularly return Earth-bound drugs produced in microgravity, transforming the economics of space access.

Drawing parallels to SpaceX's rapid progress, Bruey predicts that within a decade, multiple spacecraft could deliver space-manufactured pharmaceuticals nightly, resembling shooting stars. He even suggests that within 15 to 20 years, sending a human to orbit for a month could be cheaper than keeping them on Earth, driven by the commercialization of space production.

“I remember the first rocket I worked on at SpaceX was flight three of Falcon 9,” Bruey said at TechCrunch’s recent Disrupt event. “If someone had told me ‘reusable rockets,’ and ‘[we’ll see as] many [of these] flights as daily flights out of LAX,’ I would have been like, ‘All right, [maybe in] 15 to 20 years,’ and this feels the same level of futuristic.”

Varda achieved a major milestone in February 2024, becoming only the third corporate entity—after SpaceX and Boeing—to successfully return cargo from orbit. This cargo consisted of ritonavir crystals, an HIV medication, manufactured in space. The company has since completed a handful of additional missions.

The Promise of Space Manufacturing

Varda's core innovation lies in leveraging microgravity. In space, the usual forces that interfere with crystal formation on Earth, such as sedimentation and gravity, essentially disappear. This allows Varda to achieve precise control over crystallization, creating uniform sizes or even novel polymorphs (different structural arrangements of the same molecule). These improvements can translate into significant benefits for drugs: enhanced stability, greater purity, and extended shelf life.

The manufacturing process in orbit can take weeks or months. Once complete, Varda's W-1 capsule detaches from its spacecraft bus and plunges back through Earth's atmosphere at speeds exceeding 30,000 kilometers per hour (Mach 25). A heat shield made of NASA-developed carbon ablator material protects the precious cargo, while a parachute ensures a soft landing.

Varda's Business Model: "In-Space Industry"

Bruey emphasizes that Varda isn't merely "in the space industry" but rather "in-space industry." He explains that space is "just another place to ship to," likening their process to having a "magic oven" that adds a "gravity knob," enabling unique formulations of existing, approved drugs.

“Forget about space for a second,” said Bruey. “We just have this magic oven in the back of our warehouse where you can create formulations that you otherwise couldn’t.”

It's important to note that Varda isn't discovering new drugs but rather expanding the possibilities for existing ones. This isn't speculative science; companies like Bristol Myers Squibb and Merck have conducted pharmaceutical crystallization experiments on the International Space Station for years. Varda's innovation lies in building the commercial infrastructure to perform this repeatedly, reliably, and at a scale relevant to the pharmaceutical industry.

Why Now?

Two key factors have converged to make Varda's venture viable. First, space launches have become more predictable and bookable. Bruey notes that a decade ago, getting to orbit without being a primary mission payload was akin to "hitchhiking." Today, while still expensive, booking launch slots years in advance is dependable. Second, the availability of off-the-shelf satellite buses, such as Rocket Lab's Photon, has been a major enabler, allowing Varda to integrate its manufacturing capsules efficiently.

Currently, only the highest-value products make economic sense. This is why Varda began with pharmaceuticals; a drug commanding thousands of dollars per dose can absorb the associated transportation costs.

The "Seven Domino Theory"

Bruey frequently pitches his "seven domino theory" to members of Congress, outlining the progression of the in-space industry:

  • Domino One: Reusable Rockets. Achieved.
  • Domino Two: Manufacturing drugs in orbit and returning them. Varda has proven this.
  • Domino Three: Getting a space-manufactured drug into clinical trials. This is the crucial next step, promising "perpetual launch" demand.

Varda's business model fundamentally diverges from traditional space companies. Unlike satellite operators who launch a fixed number of satellites to build a constellation, Varda's model requires continuous launches for each drug manufacturing run. More demand for drugs translates directly to more launches. This creates a theoretically unlimited and scalable demand for launch providers, which can help justify fixed infrastructure costs and drive down per-launch prices.

This feedback loop—Domino Four—suggests that as Varda scales, costs will drop, making the next tier of drugs economically viable. More drugs mean more scale, further lowering costs in a cycle Bruey believes will "shove launch costs into the ground."

While Varda's commercial viability is still unproven, and no space-manufactured drugs are yet on pharmacy shelves, the virtuous cycle Bruey envisions could benefit the entire space industry. Lower launch costs would make space accessible for other microgravity-dependent industries, including semiconductors, fiber optics, and exotic materials.

Ultimately, Bruey tells his team, launch costs will become so low that it will be cheaper to send an employee to orbit for a month than to create additional automation.

“I imagine ‘Jane’ goes to space for a month. It’ll be like [heading to] an oil rig. She works at the drug factory for a month, comes back down, and [becomes] the first person ever to go to space and back where she generate[s] more value than the cost to take her there.”

It's at that moment, Bruey says, when "the invisible hand of the free market economy lifts us off our home planet."

Overcoming Early Hurdles: A Near-Death Experience

The path to these "shooting star" drug deliveries nearly ended before it began, Bruey revealed. Varda launched its W-1 capsule in June 2023. The pharmaceutical manufacturing process worked as planned, producing Form III ritonavir crystals—a specific structure of the HIV drug difficult to create on Earth—within weeks.

However, the capsule remained stranded in orbit for six months. The problem wasn't technical but regulatory: Varda couldn't get approval to bring W-1 home. The intended landing site, the Utah Test and Training Range, primarily serves military purposes, and "space drugs" didn't fit its priority categories. Military missions repeatedly bumped Varda's scheduled landing windows, each time invalidating the company's reentry license with the FAA and forcing them to restart the approval process.

“There were 80 people in the office who had spent two and a half years of their lives on this thing, and it’s in orbit, but we’re not sure if it can come home,” Bruey recalled.

While observers perceived Varda as reckless, Bruey clarified that the FAA had authorized the launch without a finalized reentry license, aiming to encourage the nascent commercial reentry industry. The real challenge was that this was the first commercial land reentry ever attempted, and there was no established coordination process between the Utah range and the FAA, leading to both entities feeling burdened by liability.

Varda explored alternatives, including water landings (which would have meant losing the capsule) and landing in Australia. However, Bruey made a decisive call: no half measures.

“Either you have to push the boundaries of regulation to create this future, or you don’t,” he said. “In order for Varda to be successful, we need to land on land regularly. So we just sucked it up and said, ‘Let’s figure this one out.’”

Despite the uncertainty surrounding its first mission, Varda continued production on its next capsule and maintained hiring.

In February 2024, eight months after launch, W-1 finally returned. It landed as originally planned at the Utah Test and Training Range, marking the first commercial spacecraft to land on a military test range and the first to land on U.S. soil under the FAA’s Part 450 licensing framework, introduced in 2021 to enhance commercial space operations flexibility. Varda now has landing sites in both the U.S. and Australia and is the first company to receive an FAA Part 450 operator license, streamlining future U.S. reentries without requiring full safety documentation resubmission for each flight.

Beyond Pharmaceuticals: Hypersonic Testing

From necessity, Varda developed a secondary business: hypersonic testing. Very few objects travel through the atmosphere at Mach 25, an extreme and unique environment where temperatures reach thousands of degrees, creating a plasma sheath and causing air molecules to rip apart and recombine. This environment cannot be fully replicated on Earth, even in advanced wind tunnels.

Defense agencies, including the Air Force, require testing of materials, sensors, navigation systems, and communications equipment under real hypersonic conditions. Traditionally, this involves dedicated test flights costing upwards of $100 million each with significant risks. Varda offers an alternative: its W-1 capsules already reenter at Mach 25, providing a cost-effective platform to embed sensors, test new thermal protection materials, or validate equipment in actual flight. The capsule effectively becomes a wind tunnel, and reentry is the test. Varda has already conducted experiments for the Air Force Research Laboratory, including an optical emission spectroscopy payload that took in-situ measurements of the shock layer during reentry.

Investment and Future Plans

Investors are enthusiastic about Varda’s progress, with the company raising $329 million as of its Series C round last July. Most of these funds are earmarked for expanding Varda’s pharmaceutical lab in El Segundo. The company is also hiring structural biologists and crystallization scientists to work on more complex molecules, eventually including biologics like monoclonal antibodies, a market Bruey estimates to be worth $210 billion.

A great deal must go right for Varda to make a significant impact in these markets. However, if Bruey’s predictions hold true, the future of routine space manufacturing and its broader implications for industry are closer than many might imagine.